List of Magic and Miracles I

1. Two days ago, I discovered that my computer was not able to access the Internet even though my wife's computer was. I did some tests to determine whether the cable was malfunctioning, but the cable seemed to be fine. The problem seemed to be the computer's ability to access the Internet even though it was available. So I did a Matrix Energetics visualization with my computer, imagining the atoms reconfiguring in such a way that the Internet channel was open and accessible, then put the computer to sleep and went into town for a few hours. When I returned and awakened my computer, it easily accessed the Internet and the email program was able to send and receive emails.

2. I have accidentally touched hot stoves, pipes and ovens in a way that is usually associated with severe burns. However, when I do make contact with hot objects, I remind myself that my body knows perfectly well how to heal itself. I suggest that the healing mechanism respond fully and completely, and note that the heat has been removed so the healing can take place immediately. I relax the effected area and allow it to heal, acknowledging that complete healing will take place and that complete health and functionality are already returned. I then just relax and forget about it, knowing that my body knows exactly how to accomplish this. A few hours or days later, when I remember that I made contact with a hot surface, I notice that the area is perfectly healthy and whole with no signs of any injury. Once in a while, I may notice a blister on the effected spot, but I generally do not have any discomfort after letting the whole process go.

Soul Talk: Choosing Your Way

You tend to wait for guidance or inspiration to drive you through life, as though your vision comes from a source that is outside your consciousness. You have all the information you need to choose what you want and you are sufficiently creative to solve problems and refine your direction as you engage with your reality. So, you do not need to wait for God to tell you what to do. Essentially, you decided to incarnate into physical reality to see what you would do and what your experience is like. How do you like your experience of being incarnated in physical reality?

Your tendency to wait for instructions and guidance is based on your mastery of hierarchical perception, believing that you can't possibly know enough to choose for yourself. However, you can choose to play a transitional game and be the one who decides what you do. As you know, inspiration and guidance may give the appearance of coming from outside consciousness within a hierarchical perspective, but they can just as easily be seen as intuitive aspects of consciousness within a transitional perspective. In other words, even someone who channels an entity may be telepathically or creatively putting information together without the aid of a being in another dimension. It all depends how you understand consciousness and its interaction with other peoples' and beings consciousness.

Don't wait for the voice of God to speak or divine inspiration to awaken you in the night. Make conscious choices and decisions about what you want to do each day and each moment, taking all of your wisdom, dreams, experience, awareness, compassion, dreams and knowledge into account. And see what happens.

Dancing In The Light

I am starting a new phase of my life in Port Townsend, today. I have settled into my new home, so I am applying my creative talent to living my life and being happy. I realize that I was programmed with so many different attitudes toward work and play, health and happiness, that I carry conflicting ideas about all of them. I carry the same conflicting ideas about myself and my value.

The truth is that these ideas and attitudes are not mine but the conflicting values of society at large. For example, Catholic Religion claims to value love and good deeds above all else while simultaneously trying to maintain its powerful position in world politics, global affairs and the lives of its members. As long as I rely on some sort of creed or formula in the way I live my life, I am equally subject to the opposite attitude through some other institution or agency that promotes it. If I rely on others to determine the value of my life and who I am, I remain conflicted and confused as my beliefs and loyalties shift day to day.

I am present in this moment as spirit alive in a material world, exploring, learning, playing and expanding. I have learned so much about myself by observing myself in action throughout my life. I noticed this morning, while dancing for my aerobic exercise, that I completely enjoy the dance when I am fully present in the moment, being in my body, moving it around and exploring the possibilities. At other times, my mind wanders and I think about the day and all I hope to accomplish. When I slip into planning mode, or some other thinking state, I am not present in my movements and the dancing feels perfunctory and boring. I basically watch the clock waiting for the time to elapse so I can go onto other things. That is not the way I like to live.

I want to experience each moment today being fully present in the moment. I am present now, so I'd like to continue living consciously and enjoying what I do just like I enjoyed dancing when I was present doing it. I don't have to wait until the end of the day to enjoy myself. The truth is that I enjoy engaging with all these wonderful activities, having the opportunity to contribute creatively while fully engaged. The key is being conscious and awake at all times so I can presence myself and be present in what I'm doing. I don't want to slip into old patterns of behavior or go through the motions of doing the projects unconsciously while I think of something else. I want to be fully present in what I do. I want to be happy and fulfilled in all that I am and do.

Such A Tiny Baby To Be Sent To Save Us All

"But he seems like such a tiny baby to be sent to save us all"

This quote from a choral piece, Glory Hallelu! by Don Besig, has generated my deep reflections on what it means to be awake and present in my life. I was raised Catholic, so I was programmed with the whole Jesus myth that is the Catholic reality. I don't believe that Jesus Christ was a historical person but I do believe that the Christian story does tap into deep, mythological roots so it does communicate spiritual reality, although not in the way that the Catholic Church generally interprets it.

I think of the tiny baby in the Christmas story as the awareness I have when I am being present in the moment, awake and conscious to whatever is happening. Being awake seems like such a tiny shift in consciousness from thinking and planning, worrying and striving to reach my goals in life. Nonetheless, being is the opportunity to presence myself, my spirit, my soul, my intelligence, my creativity, my inspiration and my love in the world rather than trying to act or work in ways that are recommended, taught and promoted by societies, religions, philosophies and families throughout the ages. It's like trusting that I am taking all those considerations into account by being myself honestly, fully and happily.

As I said at the beginning of this entry, this awareness doesn't seem like much in contrast to all the problems and challenges confronting me in the world. Yet, I've concluded that this is the point of my life, presencing myself in reality and having the opportunity to experience whatever happens. That certainly doesn't seem like much and yet that is what it means to me to be spiritually alive. I'm curious to see what I make of all this, now.

Awakening Creativity

I feel a creative-intuitive surge within myself this morning. I feel ready to break free from the disappointments and struggles in my history as I consider myself complete with the move into my new home as well as finishing the CSS inspired website for my daughter. It was only a year or so ago that I let go of my website design business, thinking I didn't have time to keep up with the evolving design software and innovations in the field to create just a few websites each year. I thought I could spend my time more productively and happily making music. In our current financial situation, however, we are stretched to pay two mortgages, a bridge loan and a home equity loan with our income. Suddenly, having the opportunity to learn CSS and create designs for the Internet is exciting again.

My inner child is convinced that this latest shift won't work well for me, which of course is the way he feels about just about anything I do. He is afraid that I won't be able to juggle web design with creating music, but I feel like I can. I actually enjoy playing around with software and computer programs, tinkering with websites and engaging with technological innovation. I am excited by the vast potential for communication through the Internet and am delighted to have the opportunity to help recreate our business' online presence with all the new technology in mind.

At the same time, I am excited about music and want to create, compose, arrange and communicate the music that fills my heart. This promises to be really fun and fully engaging. In fact, I feel like I've just awakened from a long dream in which I struggled to express my creative self and was consumed by a day-to-day work reality that consumed all my energy. It's a wonder that I awakened at all.

I feel ready to play.

Having An Influence On The World Around Us

I just read about experiments done to determine whether people can influence random events. It turns out that they can. Under strict scientific protocols, the experiments show that ordinary people's intentions affect whether tossed coins land showing heads or tails and other such events governed by probabilities. It's not a huge effect. Under normal conditions, tossed coins show their heads or tails 50% of the time. When people are trying to influence the outcome, the coins show heads or tails in a split more like 52% to 48% when the experiments are carried out over a great number of trials. Some people can influence the coins to show heads more often than tails when they try, while others influence the coins to show tails more often when they try to make them show heads. In either case, the influence is statistically significant.

I used tossing coins as a simple example of a random event, but scientists have performed experiments using all manner of random event generators, often digitally produced, to show that people have this effect when they try to influence the outcome. People influence the world around them, even when the outcome is not important to them.

I always believed that this was true so the results do not surprise me. However, I am delighted to know that even science now admits that consciousness and intention significantly effect reality. Now that consciousness has to be incorporated into scientific theories, science gets to reformulate its understanding of the universe and life in a more inclusive, spiritual way. I was not aware of these experimental results until two days ago, so I was operating under the assumption that science and spirituality were still antithetical. However, this is no longer the case.

I used to conduct these kinds of experiments with my ninth grade science students. I had them toss coins and try to make the coins show heads. I had 60 or 70 students in my classes and each one of them did at least a hundred tosses of their coin. That created something like 7,000 events in one day and the results demonstrated the effect, although it was difficult to draw conclusions with so few trials under consideration. In the modern experiments, the scientists easily generated millions of events for analysis, which made it possible to draw conclusions. A slight difference from the expected 50-50 split for such an event is not significant for only a few thousand cases. However, when this same split shows over millions and millions of cases, it becomes statistically significant. In my experiments, I did not account for the fact that some students might have influenced the coins to turn up more tails than heads when they tried to get more heads to show. But I did notice that some students consistently produced results that were dramatically different from the 50-50 split, while others didn't. Of course, counting everyone's results together could have balanced and canceled the effect for the overall group, but it didn't. Apparently, the same also happens with even the largest scientific studies.

Even though I believed this was true, I find it exciting to have science verify it. We all influence the world around us.

Clarity In The Moonlight

This morning, the fog gathered over the water and covered the Navy ship docked at the shipyard on Indian Island across the bay from my house. When a ship rests at the harbor, the entire waterfront is lit with bright lights that shine out over the water to make any approaching vessels clearly visible from shore. These bright lights shine directly toward my house and illuminate the rooms with windows facing northeast toward the bay so I always know when a ship is there. When I got up this morning, I didn't see any lights and thought at first that the ship had left. When I looked out the window, though, I didn't see any lights at all so I knew that the Navy shipyard was covered with fog, instead. The shipyard has lights glowing even when no ship rests there.

When I went outside to run, I was surprised to see the waning moon floating high above the trees brightly illuminating my yard and the roads on which I ran. I expected the fog to be thick in the sky above my house as it was over the water, but it was rather patchy and only sent a few silver ribbons to play with the moon. I continue to be surprised by the environment and weather in Port Townsend. I was delighted to be able to run in soft moonlight this morning, especially since I went outside wondering whether I'd have enough light in the fog to be able to run at all. And watching the moon dance with the slivers of fog in the silvery light as I ran was truly a beautiful experience.

I realize that the moon shining high in the sky while the fingers of fog reach out to it is a reminder of how my being illuminates my consciousness even when my mind's chatter distracts me from its quiet radiance. My mind has been very active for the past few days, making it difficult for me to quiet it and contemplate being. I keep thinking of things I want to do or solving web design problems that surfaced in my work on my daughter's website rather than simply being present and aware. It's distracting and I don't enjoy thinking so much of the time. The moonlight this morning reminds me that my being illuminates my life and my awareness continues unabated even when those fingers of fog apparently cover the moon and seemingly block its light. I've noticed before that the moonlight does manage to filter through the fog and illuminate the ground even when the moon disappears. So does my conscious awareness illuminate my every experience regardless of whether I quietly appreciate it or am distracted by thinking and planning.

It's just more enjoyable when the moonlight breaks through and I am fully aware of it. That's when I can be in the moment without sending tendrils of my awareness out toward the past and the future. I especially appreciate moments of clarity when I experience a time when my mind is so distracting. And this morning's run through the moonlit forest was one of them.